While making the drive back to my apartment this morning I
noticed a clear patch of sky so I made the quick decision to attempt a brief
star gazing session. Ever since I got my
new pair of astronomy binoculars (Orion 25x100) I have been looking for breaks
in the weather so I can try them out.
Unfortunately the clouds have been very persistent so far this
September.
I did not record the exact time of my observations but it
was between 05:30:00 and 07:00:00 facing east.
Below is a screenshot taken from Stellarium of what the night sky would
have looked like had there been clear skies.
I was only able to view a few dozen of the brightest stars.
Screenshot taken from Stellarium of my view of the night sky.
A visual of the cloud cover that plagued my observations.
Orion's Belt (or the Belt of Orion)
My first observation was of Orion’s belt or the Belt of
Orion. The constellation consists of the three very bright stars, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.
Visual of Alnitak's blue supergiant star next to our own star, the Sun. Source
Alnilam is
the central star in the constellation and is a blue supergiant. What is so cool about this star is the sheer
distance from us (Earth). From our point
of view the star is nearly as bright as the rest of Orion’s belt, but in fact
Alnilam is nearly twice as far from our Sun as both Alnitak and Mintaka! Because our ability to see an object in the
night sky is dependent on the distance, the size and the luminosity this tells us that
Alnilam is very, VERY bright! It is also
very massive, so large that it cannot contain itself and is losing mass
around 20 times more rapidly than our own Sun.
This baby of a sun (four million years old) is expected to transition
into a red supergiant and go critical (supernova) in the next few million
years. Source
Mintaka is
the northwestern most star and consists of a multiple star system. The system contains a large blue giant and a
larger white star. Mintaka is the
dimmest star in the constellation because the stellar system passes in front of
itself in what is termed an eclipsing binary variable star. Wikipedia tells me that this is when one star
orbits in front of the other dimming the light from the system.
Source
Orion Nebula (Messier
42)
Moving south from Orion’s belt I made my way to
the Orion Nebula or Messier 42. This was
my first experience with deep sky objects and I was not disappointed. Although visually it just looked like a fuzzy
faint cloud it was the awareness of what I was seeing that blew me away. I was looking at the brightest, youngest and
closest star-forming region to Earth.
The object consists of clouds of gas, dust and ionized volumes of more gas
all of which are violently mixing to form thousands of new stars in what has been aptly
dubbed, a stellar nursery. Source
Moon
The view I resolved through the lens of my iphone 4S looking
through one of the eyepieces of my Orion 25x100s.
The view as seen with my eye is significantly better and the
binoculars provided a very crisp and clean image that I was very happy
with. I was able to see craters,
mountains and could clearly depict topography on the surface of the moon.
Something to think about when looking up at the moon is just
how far out there in space it actually is.
It may look large compared to all the other objects, but it only covers
a very small patch of the night sky. So
small in fact, that with your arm extended you can cover up the Moon with your
pinky finger! The image below helps you
wrap your mind around the vast distance between Earth and the moon. Within that distance all the planets of our
solar system could fit!
An image I got off the front page of Reddit a while back.
Image of Jupiter and two of the Galilean
Satellites taken by Hubble.
Average distance between the Earth and the Moon with all the
planets of our solar system contained between.
Jupiter
Image taken by anonymous amateur
astronomer of Jupiter and all four Galilean Satellites.
Screenshot taken from Stellarium of Jupiter and its moons
similar to my view.
The planet Jupiter is the fifth planet out from our Sun, and
is regarded as a “gas giant”. This is
because it has no solid rocky surface like we have here on Earth. Speaking of Earth, more than 1,000 Earths
would fit inside the volume of Jupiter!
Another interesting fact that I find especially
fascinating about this planet is that it has the shortest day of all the
planets: 9 hours and 55 minutes. This
spin is so fast that it flattens Jupiter at the poles and gives the planet an
oblate shape. Source
Quick thought experiment.
Image that Jupiter did have a solid surface and you were standing on
it. Then imagine that suddenly Jupiter
stopped rotating, instantly. You would
find yourself hurtling through the atmosphere of Jupiter at over 28,000 mph or
roughly 19 times as fast as an F-16 fighter jet!
Because Jupiter is so large its gravitational pull attracts
a lot of stuff. The planet has a thin
ring system and 67 known moons! I was
able to see four, the Galilean Satellites: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Europa is of particular interest to the
scientific community because it has a large ocean beneath its icy surface. Here
on Earth where there is water there is life, which leads one to speculate about
what might be swimming around beneath the surface of Europa.
Despite poor visibility I am pleased with what I was able to
observe. I find that the most enjoyable
part of looking up is trying to wrap my head around what it is exactly that I am
looking at. The experience is both incredibly exciting and
humbling at the same time. After all we are all just riding through space on a pale blue dot...
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
No comments:
Post a Comment